Taken...

The pale shoot sprouts and waits beneath the dirt

Moody March pouts, sashays and seethes and flirts

The azure thirst of spring’s impending bliss

Must suffer first, winter’s keen, farewell kiss

Maidens with frocks of apple-blossom pink

Prance restlessly beyond earth’s umbral brink

Cloud-billows pregnant with blustering sham

Will scatter soon like wooly, wand’ring lambs

While winter’s ice and snow-sparkle melee

Melts into a dear, distant memory

Ah, ides of March, should we a tomb prepare?

And tremble? Is there sorrow in the air?

Nay, who can scorn the hour of your wrath

Leading to hyacinth and lily-path?

What is will be, but this one thing is sure

No winter can Spring’s serenade endure

And from her pristine pastures in the sky

She winks and captures Old Man Winter’s eye

He grumbles but cannot contain the glow

Of golden sunbeams blushing on the snow

His portly foreboding cannot resist

The fantasy of being softly kissed

And though with mustered will he fumes and frets

Her whisper flusters his well-designed threats

Beckoning him to 'come, lay in her lap

For surely he could use a long, long nap'

What is the use? Love’s longing pays no heed

To reputation in the hour of need

He pauses, taken by her winsome smile

He’ll rest; but only for a little while…

© Janet Martin